“It’s all those books he’s reading,” she explained.
Drew cast her a wry grin. “Let’s hope.”
A few minutes later, at the end of the rough trail, they reached an opening in the forest where he and his brothers used to camp with Old Gene. After helping Josselyn and Dillon out of the Jeep, Drew gazed around, remembering lying out in a sleeping bag around the fire, staring up at the stars and wondering if he’d ever grow into a man his father would be proud to call son.
“Look at this, Dad!”
Drew glanced over to see Dillon standing near a fire ring built of large rocks. Nearby, a huge fallen log had been hewn with an ax to form a crude picnic table, complete with a pair of smaller logs to serve as benches.
“Someone has been using the old place,” Drew commented as Josselyn came to stand beside him. “But other than the fire ring and the picnic table, everything looks just like it did years ago. I wasn’t expecting that.”
She cast him a gentle smile. “It’s nice when good things stay the same. Especially when they’re attached to pleasant memories.”
“Yes. Very nice,” he agreed. “It’s also very nice to be making new memories—with you and Dillon.”
She didn’t say anything, but words were unnecessary as she wrapped her hand around his. As the warmth of her fingers spread through his own, he was quite certain the sky suddenly turned a brighter shade of blue.
Clearing the huskiness from his throat, he said, “Let’s go see what Dillon is getting into.”
She nodded and hand in hand, they walked over to where Dillon was poking a long stick into the cold ashes inside the fire ring.
“Can we build a fire, Dad?” Dillon asked. “We might need a fire to run off the wild animals. Like coyotes and bears! They might come around to get our food!”
Drew and Josselyn exchanged amused glances.
“I don’t think any wild animals will be snooping around in the daylight,” Drew informed him. “For now we’ll leave the picnic basket in the Jeep. No need to carry it and our fishing gear down to the water. And we’ll build a fire later. When we have lunch. Do you two go along with that idea?”
“Yay! I vote for that! Don’t you, Josselyn?” Dillon asked, as he hopped back and forth over a small boulder.
“Sounds good to me,” Josselyn agreed. “I only wish we had marshmallows to roast.”
“You’re in luck,” Drew told her. “Claire packed a bag of them in the picnic basket.”
He walked over to the Jeep and opened the back end. Josselyn followed and helped him unload a tackle box, along with three fishing rods.
“The next time I run into Claire, I’ll have to thank her for being so thoughtful to add marshmallows to our picnic,” Josselyn said. “Isn’t she married to Levi Wyatt?”
“That’s right. She’s my cousin. She was a Strickland before she married Levi Wyatt. Do you know her?”
“I met her at the back-to-school picnic. Her daughter, Bekka, isn’t old enough for kindergarten quite yet, but I think Claire wants to acquaint herself with the teachers before she finally does have to send Bekka off to school. I didn’t realize you two were related.”
“Her father, Peter, and my father, Jerry, are brothers,” he explained. “It’s like you said—everyone in Rust Creek Falls is either acquainted or related in some way.”
Josselyn laughed. “Good thing I didn’t say something bad about the woman.”
“That’s not likely. There’s nothing bad anyone could say about Claire. She’s a fine, hardworking woman. Like you,” he added as he handed her one of the fishing rods.
The simple compliment appeared to surprise her and then she said jokingly, “You might want to rethink that after you see my fishing skills. I’ll probably end up catching more tree limbs than anything.”
“We’re not going to keep count,” he assured her.
Dillon skidded to a stop at Josselyn’s side. “I wanta carry my own fishing pole,” he told his father. “Gramps lets me.”
Drew handed the smallest rod to Dillon. “Okay. Just no running with it or that will be the end,” he warned.
“Gee, Dad, what’s wrong with running? Isn’t that what kids are supposed to do when they’re outside?”
Not wanting to ruin Dillon’s outing with gory details of injuries and accidents, he answered simply, “At the right time and the right place. This isn’t one of them.”
Annoyed with his father’s explanation, Dillon pushed out his bottom lip. Noticing the boy’s reaction, Josselyn patted the top of his head. “What your dad means is that you might seriously hurt yourself and he doesn’t want that to happen. Because he loves you.”
Drew couldn’t decide if Dillon understood the meaning of Josselyn’s words or if he was simply happy to hear them from a soft-spoken woman. Either way, she’d managed to put a smile back on his face.
“Okay, Josselyn. No running,” he promised, then cast a hopeful eye at his father. “But what about hopping and jumping, Dad?”
Drew cast a hopeless look at Josselyn and he could see she was struggling to contain her laughter. Any other time, Drew would have been losing his patience completely, but with Josselyn’s company, he was able to appreciate the humor in his son’s antics. How was it that she could make him see both sides of things?
“Once we get to the stream you can hop and jump all you want,” Drew told him. “But just remember all that stomping around will probably scare the fish away.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dillon said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
Drew shut the back of the Jeep and the three of them headed down a hard-packed foot trail through a mixture of evergreens and hardwood trees. Birds chirped among the branches and two squirrels gathered acorns beneath a large oak. Every now and then, bright sunlight managed to break through the forest canopy over their heads, and each time Drew watched the golden shafts sparkle upon Josselyn’s blond hair.
Drew had never had an interest in prospecting. And after Evelyn, he’d lost all interest in having a woman in his life. But now, as he watched Josselyn walk casually alongside his son, he realized he’d somehow managed to stumble upon a precious nugget.
It’s about time you woke up and realized your good fortune, Drew. What do you intend to do with your golden opportunity? Stand back and let it slip away? Or hold tight and—
“Look! I see deer!”
Dillon’s exclamation broke through the taunting voice in Drew’s head and he looked ahead, in the direction of his son’s pointed finger. A doe was standing with her head up, her nose to the wind. At her side, a fawn was nibbling at a berry bush, unaware of its human audience.
Josselyn lowered her head close to Dillon’s ear. “That’s a mother and her baby,” she said in a hushed voice. “She’s watching us to make sure we don’t harm her little one.”
The fawn continued to nibble for a few more moments before the doe nudged it on to the safety of the forest shadows.
“Aww, there they go!” Dillon watched the animals scurry away, then looked up at Josselyn. “Gosh, I guess fawns are like us kids. They need mommies, too.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she simply put her arm around Drew’s son’s shoulders and urged him forward.
As Drew watched, he wondered if a hand had reached inside his chest. Something was squeezing his heart so tightly that he could scarcely breathe.
Dillon didn’t remember having a mother, yet he clearly wanted one now. And it was up to Drew to give him one.
But that didn’t mean he should go after Josselyn just to give his son another parent. No, she deserved more than that, Drew thought. She deserved real love from a real man, not an empty shell going through the motions of life. Pretending he could love again.
Chapter Six
The sun was warm on Josselyn’s face as she sat on a boulder near the edge of the
small stream where the three of them had stopped to fish. During the past couple of hours, she’d tried her hand at catching the rainbow trout swimming about in the clear, cold water. After managing to snag a half dozen and releasing them back into the stream to swim another day, Josselyn had decided to put down her rod and reel and simply enjoy being out in the forest.
A few feet away from her sun-dappled spot, Drew attempted to instruct his son on the finer points of fishing.
“Dillon, you’re casting too hard. That’s why the lure is landing beyond the stream and into the bushes. Don’t cast with your shoulder. Give it a flick of your wrist. Like this.”
After watching his father’s demonstration, Dillon complained, “I can’t do it like that, Dad. Anyway, this is the way Gramps taught me. And that’s the way I want to do it.”
Drew threw up his hands in a gesture of helpless surrender. “Okay. Do it your way.”
Turning away from the boy, Drew walked over to Josselyn and she scooted over to make room for him on the boulder. After he’d taken a seat next to her, he said, “I’m not sure why I bother. It’s always ‘Gramps this or that.’ Or ‘Grandpa Jerry has already taught me how to do this.’”
With his shoulder close enough to brush hers, it was a struggle to concentrate on his words. “Grandpa Jerry? Is that what he calls your father?”
Drew nodded, then, with a heavy sigh, glanced in Dillon’s direction. “I’m sure you’ve been hearing it.”
“Several times this morning I’ve noticed him mentioning his grandfathers,” she admitted. “Is this something he does often?”
He groaned. “Only about fifty times a day.”
“Which makes you feel insignificant.”
His grunt was a sound of self-deprecation. “Now you’re probably thinking I’m being more childish than Dillon. And you’d be right. It’s stupid of me to be envious of my son’s relationships with his grandparents.”
The frustration etched upon his features told Josselyn just how deeply he wanted his son’s admiration. “I don’t think you’re being childish. More like human. Every father wants his child to look up to him. I know mine does. Probably more so now that his children have grown into adults.”
“That’s a kind way of putting it,” he said, then groaned in afterthought. “I have no right to be envious. It’s my own fault that Dillon doesn’t respect me in the same way he does his grandfathers.”
Josselyn shook her head. “You’re wrong. Dillon does respect you.”
“Maybe respect is the wrong word,” he said ruefully. “It’s just that our relationship isn’t the same strong bond that he has with my father and grandfather. For a while after Evelyn died that fact didn’t bother me. It was enough that my son was healthy and safe and that all his needs were being met. I didn’t realize that, later on, building a bond with my son would be so hard to do. I’m beginning to think it might even be impossible.”
If losing his wife had debilitated him to the point he’d been unable to care for his son, he must have been wildly in love with her. The thought made Josselyn wonder if he was still pining for the woman or if he was making an attempt to forget and find the strength to move forward. Josselyn desperately wanted to believe he was thinking about the future.
“You’re being awfully hard on yourself, aren’t you?” she asked gently. “I’m willing to bet that you’ve always been a good father.”
He shook his head. “In the sense that I’ve always provided him with a home and the essentials, that much is true. But there were long blocks of time that I wasn’t around when my son needed me.”
Her heart ached for him and for Dillon. “Where were you? Lost in your grief?”
“Partly. The rest of the time I was at the clinic, putting in incredibly long hours, hoping the work would ease the tortured thoughts in my head. And all that time, Dillon was growing up and away from me.”
Josselyn tried to reason the situation. “But he’s here with you now. And I definitely see a father and son. Not just a man babysitting a boy.”
His expression pensive, he picked up a tiny pebble and tossed it into the shallow water. “I’ll be honest, Josselyn, if it hadn’t been for my parents pushing me, I probably wouldn’t have made this move to Rust Creek Falls. Obviously, they could see that Dillon and I needed to be together—away from the crutch they provided for the both of us.”
The need to reassure him had her reaching over and resting her hand on his forearm. “I believe you made the right move. What do you think?”
He glanced pointedly down at her hand, then back to her face, and suddenly her heart was beating too fast for comfort.
“I’m beginning to believe it’s the best move I’ve made in years,” he murmured.
Her gaze locked with his and as she studied the brown depths of his eyes, the warmth of his arm began to seep into her hand and beg her palm to slide upward toward his shoulder. She wanted to move closer. She wanted to say all the things that were racing through her thoughts, even though she knew most of them would probably scare him away.
“Dad, look! I tried—like you told me! And I did it! Watch and I’ll show you!”
Dillon’s excited yells suddenly broke the momentary spell that had fallen between them.
Stifling her sigh of disappointment, Josselyn removed her hand from Drew’s arm and smiled. “See. You’re definitely doing something right.”
Grinning, he straightened to his full height and walked over to his son. And as Josselyn watched the two of them interact, she wondered if one day she might possibly be the woman who could fill the missing void in their little family. Or was she dreaming the impossible?
You’ve been existing in a fictional world of books, Josselyn. Otherwise, you could see for yourself that Drew is never going to make room in his heart for any woman, except his late wife.
There was a chance that the mocking voice in her head could be right, Josselyn thought. But she wasn’t going to let herself believe the dismal warning. She was an optimist. A true believer in the impossible coming true.
So what if Drew had been walking along a dark path for these past few years? That didn’t mean he’d lost his way completely. He could find his way back to love and happiness. All she had to do was nudge him in the right direction.
* * *
With the next day being Sunday, the clinic was closed and Drew had the leisure of hanging around the boardinghouse. Throughout the day, Dillon hung close to his father’s side and chattered nonstop about Josselyn and the fishing trip.
Normally, Drew would have grown weary of hearing his son make the same repetitive comments about the same subject. But not now. Not this time. He was beginning to realize just how important it was to listen to his child. And it was thrilling to know that he’d done something right and made a real connection with Dillon.
Later that night, when Dillon climbed into bed, he was still talking about Josselyn, rather than the tooth he’d lost after dinner.
“Dad, you really like Josselyn, don’t you?”
Drew finished tucking the cover beneath Dillon’s chin before he eased onto the side of the mattress and carefully studied his son’s eager face.
“I do. Really like her,” Drew told him, while thinking just how very much he meant those words. During the past six years, the idea of enjoying any woman’s company had never crossed his mind. But something about Josselyn was eating away at all the protective barriers he’d built around his heart. He was beginning to feel again. Really feel. And the realization was both exhilarating and frightening.
“That’s good,” Dillon said happily. “’Cause I like her, too. You know what I like the most about her?”
Smiling faintly, Drew reached up and pushed at a hank of hair resting near Dillon’s right eye. “Let me guess. That she’s pretty and nice and she helps you pick out fun books to read?”
Dillon’s
wide grin exposed a gap where the tooth was missing. Tonight, after he’d fallen asleep, the tooth fairy would leave a small amount of money beneath his pillow. But so far, he didn’t appear to be concerned about the idea of having money to spend. Josselyn seemed to be far more important to him than a visit from the tooth fairy.
Dillon said, “Yeah, all that stuff is nice. But I like her mostly because she makes you smile, Dad. And that makes me happy.”
A lump of raw emotion was suddenly choking Drew, making him wonder if he could say a word without his voice breaking. All this time he’d believed his son’s feelings for him were mostly indifferent. His assumption had been wrong.
Clearing his throat with a rough cough, Drew said, “You’re right, son. Josselyn does make me smile. Until she came along I guess I’d kinda forgotten how to do that.”
If possible, Dillon’s grin stretched even wider. “Does that mean you’re gonna take her on dates and ask her to marry you?”
Drew arched a brow at him. “Whoa, son. You’re going way too fast. A guy has to take a woman on lots of dates before he gets around to marrying her. And even if he decides she’s the right woman, the woman has to be in agreement.”
Dillon thought about that for a moment. “You mean she has to say yes?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
His expression turning smug, Dillon settled his head deeper into the pillow. “Well, that’s no worry, Dad. Josselyn will say yes.”
“Hmm. You seem awfully certain about that. Remember what you’ve learned about counting your chickens before they hatch? Sometimes things don’t turn out like you think they will.”
Dillon’s head wagged back and forth against the pillow. “This time they’re gonna turn out just right. She’s gonna say yes. I can tell, ’cause when she looks at you her eyes twinkle.”
Deciding for now it was best to let his son have his dreams, and perhaps best for himself, too, he playfully tickled Dillon’s ribs. “Silly boy,” he teased. “That was just the sun making her eyes sparkle. Now, you go to sleep.”
The Little Maverick Matchmaker (Montana Mavericks: The Lonelyhearts Ranch Book 3) Page 8
